The Urban Permaculture Farm Magazine

The Garden Girl

I can feel the beginning of spring. But what about all that snow, you say. The truth is, spring is really a state of mind. And somewhere inside, I can see those bulbs blooming. Even without soil to till, I spend these weeks- as it stays light later and the temperatures grow milder - planning out this year's garden extravaganza. In that spirit, this spring's issue is packed with videos and articles meant to inspire and help you develop a more sustainable home and garden this year.

Fred Dunne is back with an article, pictures, and videos on Chicken Coops and Tractors. The Dirt Diva has written a new book Talking Dirt that is being released this month and she sat down for a interview with little old me. The Public Television show I am co-hosting with Joe Lamp'l is gearing up, so be sure to check that article out and show your support by contacting your local Public Television channel. Meet Greg Peterson from Your Guide to Green and the Urban Farm Press. Save water and  time with Drip Irrigation and Planet Green features 30 Minute Gardening with Garden Sox.  View the Urban Wildlife Photo Gallery from my urban farm  and don't forget to scroll all the way down to the bottom to see all the other great stuff in this issue.

This month we are also premiering our new video series, Urban Sustainable Living and Friends, where I team up with cool folks doing green things. This month features the Urban Gardener from CBS This Morning and HGTV- William Moss, one of America's best known garden and landscaping experts. Our Friends at Radius Garden have just launched their new blog http://radiusgarden.com/blog and contributor Shawna Corronado has started a new venture, the Grow 1 World Project, so show your support and visit the new site.

It isn't too late to get free seeds from WinterSown.Org, click here for details.

And if your new around here don't forget to visit our archive page, which is being updated weekly with articles from last year! 

From the Sustainable Home Front,  
Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl

Check out Last Months issue with Great Articles on how to Jump start your Spring Garden.

Housing Solutions for Backyard Chickens

Housing Poultry from City to Country

In my part of the United States, you can't drive down a back road without seeing the remnants of an old bygone chicken coop near a barn or house.  Quietly decaying as time passes, a visual marker of a time when almost every rural family kept chickens close at hand.

No matter where you plan to keep chickens, consideration must be given to housing. Chickens need a place to be protected while they grow, eat, sleep and rest. Chicken housing may be as simple as an old existing shed or fwd housing solutions for backyard chickens garden shack, a light weight portable design, or a poultry barn, housing hundreds.

Read the Full Article HERE

Create a Weed Free Garden in Under 30 Minutes

Starting a garden doesn't get much easier than this.

One of the things that puts some people off from starting up a raised bed garden is the effort and materials required. They might only start a garden if it is as easy as humanly possible. Well, there's a product out there that makes starting a raised garden or container garden completely excuse-free and utterly un-intimidating.

GardenSoxx is a two-foot long fabric sack of compost that creates a weed-free garden in minutes. Patti Moreno, of The Garden Girl fame, shows us how easy and fast it is to set up a raised vegetable bed with GardenSoxx.

Read the Full Article HERE

Urban Wildlife Garden Photo Gallery

Developing sustainable landscapes has the added benefit of bringing and encouraging wildlife of all types to call your corner of the planet home too.  It seems like since we started our urban farm we have seen all manner of fauna visit us, from beautiful and itinerate wild birds to regular visitors like Kooky the Red tailed hawk. If you have pictures of your own visitors be sure to send them over to info@gardengirltv.com

Read the Full Article HERE

Talking Dirt

The Garden Girl in a Q and A with the Dirt Diva

PM: Annie here it is, your latest greatest book! How long did it take to develop and how did it compare to writing your first book?

AS: My first book, Annie’s Garden Journal, was more of a memoir styled book about my fear of marriage and the frustrations of trying to turn a new suburban lot into an old English Cottage garden. I had to learn patience and I’m still not happy about that! I had just moved to the Bay Area after growing up in Manhattan. I knew nothing about gardening or long-term commitments. Both made me suspicious. It was the year before my wedding and I kept a journal chronicling the wedding preparations, the challenges in my new garden and the imminent arrival of my loud, eccentric New York relatives who’d be coming out to a tiny, quiet farm town in Northern California to celebrate.  After many, many years of failed plantings, horticultural research, training as a Master Gardener and becoming a garden columnist I can now say, without a doubt, that I was the worst gardener ever created! All I knew how to do then was pump a bunch of chemical fertilizer into the ground and spray pesticides on leaves, over and over and over. That’s not gardening.

Read the Full Article HERE

10 Reasons to install Drip Irrigation in your Garden

I travel all the time to produce videos and with my automated drip irrigation system from Dripworks I no longer have to worry about asking the neighbors to water my plants while I'm away. I had a great time learning from Leon and my raised beds have flourished since installing a drip irrigation system.

Drip irrigation has been used since ancient times when buried clay pots were filled with water, which would gradually seep into the grass or crops. Modern drip irrigation has arguably become the world's most valued innovation in agriculture in the past forty years, which offered the first practical alternative to surface irrigation like sprinklers and flood and drain systems. Drip irrigation may also use devices called micro-spray heads, which spray water in a small area, instead of dripping emitters. These are generally used on tree and vine crops with wider root zones. Subsurface drip irrigation uses permanently or temporarily buried drip line located where the plant is. Modern City Gardeners have been flocking to it, not only to save water, but because the systems can automated allowing for worry free gardening.

Read the Full Article HERE

Growing a Greener World on Public Television

Gardening know-how to a 21st-century audience. For viewers of all ages with stunning HD video, a fresh and engaging style, and always a compelling story. Each episode will feature the people, organizations, and events that are making a difference in our world today by raising awareness and influencing others to better stewardship of the environment we all share. Watch Joe Lamp'l and his co-host Patti Moreno as they explore the country seeking out innovation and inspiration for green lifestyles.

Read the Full Article HERE

3 Edible Landscape Solutions

A delicious ground cover

Strawberry plants are a great ground cover for several reasons. They tend to stay very low and bushy, and the runners that each plant produces quickly fill in, covering the ground completely and choking out any potential weeds. Aside from the delicious fruit these plants produce, they are covered with tiny flowers (which can be pink or white) in late spring to early summer.

If you can, plant your strawberries on a gradual slope; this improves with drainage and can help prevent frost injury. A south facing slope allows strawberries to ripen a few days earlier than plants on a north facing slope. I’ve planted a variety of strawberries, both June bearing and ever bearing, on a slope at the back of my property. Planting different varieties allows me to enjoy multiple harvests throughout the growing season. Plan on making room for at least 100 strawberry plants for a family of four to enjoy the fruit when ripe, and have enough berries to save as jellies and jams so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor all year long

Read the Full Article HERE

Phoenix Arizona's Urban Farmer Greg Peterson

Your Guide to Green's founder Greg Peterson

Greg Peterson is a man on a mission, to "Inspire people to embrace their own greenness", and that is just what he has been doing as a resident of Phoenix for the last 41 years. Greg is well-versed in urban sustainability, green living and food production in dry lands having been first introduced to desert gardening at the age of 12. In 1991, he discovered Bill Mollison and David Holgrem's concept of permaculture, bringing together many sustainability concepts into one cohesive system. Permaculture systems have greened deserts and enriched the lives of many across the globe, especially in dry climates.

Read the Full Article HERE

Around The Web

Wicked Plants: Join bestselling author Amy Stewart from www.gardenrant.com as she takes on Mother Nature's most appalling creations. Her new book, Wicked Plants, is an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, Stewart presents tales of bloodcurdling botany that will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

Peak Moment: Tour the century-old organic Chaffin Family Orchards where even the animals are "farm hands." Visit chickens in their egg-mobile, scratching for bugs and pooping fertilizer in the heirloom stone-fruit orchards. Goats chomp off low branches from the olive trees, so no fuel or human labor is needed. This certified predator-friendly enterprise includes 200 acres of olive trees plus various fruit and nut trees; sheep, goats, broiler and egg-laying chickens.

Kichen Gardeners: Together, gardeners and good food advocates pitched in to help give the White House and the Obamas a healthy kitchen garden. Now it's time for gardeners around the world to work together again on a much bigger challenge: feeding a growing population with a rapidly degrading natural resource base and in a rapidly changing global climate.